Meanwhile, Ewart and Brotherton having put their heads together, a piece of legislation was secured that would and did ensure the establishment of a certain number of public libraries, rate-aided if not entirely rate-supported. This was the Act of 1845 for “Encouraging the Establishment of Museums in Large Towns,” first-fruits of the proposals passed by the Manchester meeting of the previous year. It authorized the levy of a halfpenny rate, in towns of not less than 10,000 inhabitants, for the erection of museums of science and art; it did not allow public funds to be used for purchasing books or even exhibits; and it was supposed that salaries and other maintenance charges would be defrayed out of the penny-fees for admission. Timid and inadequate as such measures were, the Act was followed at once by the opening of museums at Warrington, Salford, Canterbury, Liverpool, Leicester, Dover, and Sunderland, the first three towns forming collections of books as well. In 1848 Warrington provided the first free reference library under the Act, and also a lending library for the use of subscribers. Brotherton, with the aid of a local benefactor, saw to it that a library and museum were opened at Salford in 1850. Thus, although looking back we may think it strange that museums should be started before libraries, they did prove a stepping-stone to the greater necessity. Ewart now applied himself to inducing the House of Commons to appoint a Select Committee on the question of public libraries, and availed himself of the services of Edwards in preparing evidence and framing proposals. Edwards was the chief witness before the first Committee appointed, in 1849, and a special motion of thanks for his services was appended to their Report. He gave an account of the resources, conditions, and relative accessibility to the public of 35 British libraries, the majority of which were university or college foundations and only two, the Warrington and Chetham libraries, public in a true sense; he drew an elaborate comparison with 383 libraries of not less than 10,000 volumes apiece which, he affirmed, were open to every one on the Continent, and with about a hundred in the United States. In his examination by the Committee, he pleaded for grants from the Privy Council to supplement local contributions, as were already being given for elementary education; the inspection of libraries by the Committee of Council on Education, and the institution of a Ministry of Public Instruction charged with the control of public education and the supervision of public libraries; the establishment, not as a tax on publishers but at the national expense, of public depositories for all books published in the United Kingdom; the international exchange of books for the encouragement of libraries. Edwards urged other advanced ideas, some of which, such as the provision of a different class of public libraries for country parishes, have generations later begun to